Time to move this city to at least "hybrid district" elections and reverse the negative trend of our recently mandated switch to solely district elections. This recent switch was crammed down under threat of CVRA attorney fee damages. (CVRA - California Voting Rights Act)
There has been no measurable benefit to the overall health of this city after making this election format switch a decade ago. Just the opposite. We are now floundering and flailing with only the mayor still elected city wide, who now is the only elected representative required to take the wider view on matters that are ultimately critical to all of us.
"Hybrid elections" require candidates to reside in a certain city district, but are still voted on at-large by the entire city. They continue to bring in the voice of their own unique community, but remain responsible to city voters as a whole. This city is too small to support only district elections. The growing insularity of this current narrow district voting mandate is creating overall institutional dysfunction.
At least provide an audit of city revenue generation per city district and each district's subsequent demand on city resources, to see if there are unequal fiscal issues we are inadvertently overlooking. The city is primarily a fiscal entity; not an experimental social engineering proving-ground, costs be damned.
Let's get our internal books balanced first, before we are dunned for another round of increased taxation, or intentional loss of city revenues, now used to carry out some narrowly focused social engineering scheme.
Audit of City revenue generation per City district and each district's subsequent demand on city resources to see if there are unequal fiscal issues ! Yes...
Unfortunately we are two different tables. Actually I'm not at the table. I'm not playing a hand. If you feel my comments should remove me from the conversation, stay in your echo chamber. I'm trying to get out of my bubble, but nobody here has convinced me yet. Why is Mitt Romney the best you can do? Why did you throw out Liz Cheney?
The unused new bike path I have been observing over the past few months finally hit the news: an accident between a bike rider and auto. The only known report of actual use of this new bike path near Micheltorena and Sola Streets - the chess set segment of this biking safety program. Speedy recovery and best wishes to the injured bike rider. But what happened that ran counter to all these best laid plans?
The original plan was to wipe out all street parking along Micheltorena Street to directly connect the Westside to State Street, which is a plan that looked good only on paper. Micheltorna street provides street parking for one of the more densely populated parts of town with lots of small housing and infill units on older small lots, with very little off-street parking. This was back when Cathy Murillo was mayor.
That proposed use of Micheltorena Street did cause sufficient uproar that a compromise to use the less traveled West Sola Street as a bike way was offered instead, which required this very awkward chess piece lane connection between Micheltorena Bridge and the new Sola Street bike path connection.
Regardless, I have yet to see much use of this Westside bike connection to downtown. Maybe others have better stats than my randomly timed observations. I do like bike paths and enjoyed them when I was a cross town bike rider in the past, but agree, this one does not work. But what would in this congested part of town with narrow streets and through-town car traffic?
PS: At one time several decades ago the traffic plan was to block off both Castillo and Bath Streets to car traffic at West Mission (West Micheloterena?) Streets.
This would devote both Bath and Castillo for mainly interior residential use in this part of downtown, as well as offer safer route for the proposed bike path on these two streets. The more direct traffic going into downtown would be funneled into Chapala and DelaVina Streets instead
Both Bath and Castillo were two-way streets at that time, which were far too narrow for both street parking and two way traffic. Accidents with parked cars were routine. The City did finally change Bath and Castillo to one-way streets and did include these two bike paths to the beach, but never closed off the through traffic starting act Misson (Or Micheltorena?)
So out of this incompleted master traffic management plan, they now needed to make a connection to the Westside across the Micheltoerna Bridge and that is where we are today. A hodgepodge.
Could they still close off those two streets to direct through traffic and make a more direct connection to the existing bike paths to the Westside? And use those silly chess piece barriers in the sad little sole playground at the Westside Community Center -the only "open space" by the freeway for kids to play in this part of town?.
I am curious about a couple of items. Having sent several FOIA requests myself, I know the way you phrase the request can make a difference. Perhaps something like, what is the total agreement between b-cycle and the city, and what has been the total revenue generated for the city. Perhaps there is not a lease agreement but some other kind of mutual benefit agreement.
Also I think the city only gets something like 3% of property tax revenue, most of it going the county. So housing being exempt from property tax is probably a very small drop in the bucket for the city.
I am for a thorough analysis of the spending. I believe there are several places the city could save millions of dollars.
Total, Amount, and Received, are three words in the request that should have pulled something. 3% from property tax, correct is a small amount. But isn't 1/2 a cent or 1% (as in sales tax increases)? Yet 3% on $500,000.00 is much more than 1% on $100.00.
As property owning citizens of the City you may understand how your taxes will go up due to an inexperienced City Council and a lot of new out-of-towner City officials running things.
They want to raise Sales Taxes by 1/2 cent to maintain services that are already being done. Consider voting NO on this measure in November.
think globally, ACT locally
Part Of the reason for wanting to raise sales taxes is due to decreased tax revenue. It doesn't take a genius to see at least two things that are causing decreased tax revenue.
1. Buying property tax paying properties for the Housing Authority to build low rent apartments is partly accomplished by having the Housing Authority pay no property taxes on those properties.
2. Having closed 8 blocks of State Street for 5 years has forced a lot of businesses to leave. Consequently, the City has decided to raise the parking fees at City owned parking lots. Higher parking fees will create fewer people downtown and consequently reduce sales (and taxes) in the City. In essence, the City has tried to repeal the Law of Supply and Demand.
Thank you if you have been able to read this much. Please vote locally in November
Voters also need a better understanding even if revenues had remained the same, there are numerous expense accelerators that are automatic, and already built into every new city budget creating new deficits every year even when treading water revenue wise.
Eg: step increases, and increased premiums demanded by outside third party employee benefits providers - health and pension costs as well as just the routine costs and supplies.
These automatic expense generators get paid off the top, and voters are told you will not get any more infrastructure repairs or improvements unless you agree to higher taxes. Does anyone's private industry business operate this way? Or for how long.
Should voters be asked to pay additionally for parks and potholes, when in fact city revenues have already been siphoned off up front for increased employee pension benefits? We are currently on an escalator that only goes up. We need to better understand what this means. How do we stop this automatic escalator. How do we get off this escalator? What prices are we willing to pay regardless.
(I commend much, but not all, of Josh Molina's recent Noozhawk pod cast about city staff recommendations for increased parking fees. Molina is starting to get it, but remains misguided on other requisite trendy talking points and personal recommendations. It is however a good autopsy on how our city (staff) too often makes decisions in our names. )
I think churches, synagogues and mosques ought to be taxed for their property value, and set an example of charity in action by offering up their parking lots unused for most of the week as "safe parking" for "individuals experiencing homelessness" living in cars. They can require the downtrodden attend services so they have a chance at salvation.
Salvation Army and the Rescue Mission at one time were doing an exemplary job with the relatively limited numbers of transients who came to through this town. However, a former city council, reinforced by a one-off local judicial decision allowing overnight RV use of our streets, led to the council's decision to support a secular "homeless shelter" which did not include the mandatory religious component in order to participate.
One can mark that city council decision as a turning point in the explosive growth of the no-strings attached current response to this continually growing and highly disruptive street population.
Nice to see you suggest reintroducing the spiritual aspects as a valued and necessary component when working with this issue, with its proven prior track record of both the Salvation Army and the Rescue Mission. Building on success is always a good recourse, when current policy remains an ongoing and increasingly expensive failure.
Bonnie, thanks for mentioning Josh Molina's post, at 9:00 I think he gives the best reasons for State street be reopened to cars.
And on the Housing Authority, I live near the corner of Rancheria and West Montecito streets, just below City College. The property on the corner has yellow development signs saying, "52 low income apartments proposed."
The notice says the ABR is meeting next Tuesday at 3pm. I really hope they are providing more than 52 off street parking spots.
BCycle is somehow related to the bike juggernaut Trek bicycles of Wisconsin. Bcycles is a non-profit but have the same address as Trek. Trek does fund a lot of new backcountry and frontcountry bike trails.
Mountain bikers terrorize the back country trails as badly as the bike gangs terrorize pedestrians on State Street. Riding bikes used to be a fun outdoor activity for young people. When did it become so angry and politicized?
We've had different experiences in the back country - where I have found most bikes have bells and are courteous to hikers and horses. Yes, there are some teens and young folks that still need to learn the etiquette ropes. And not that it would give anyone the excuse to be rude - but a majority of the biking, hiking and horse trails are maintained by what were mountain bike focused groups like SAGE trail alliance. https://sagetrail.org/ and other groups like montecito trail foundation.
Time to move this city to at least "hybrid district" elections and reverse the negative trend of our recently mandated switch to solely district elections. This recent switch was crammed down under threat of CVRA attorney fee damages. (CVRA - California Voting Rights Act)
There has been no measurable benefit to the overall health of this city after making this election format switch a decade ago. Just the opposite. We are now floundering and flailing with only the mayor still elected city wide, who now is the only elected representative required to take the wider view on matters that are ultimately critical to all of us.
"Hybrid elections" require candidates to reside in a certain city district, but are still voted on at-large by the entire city. They continue to bring in the voice of their own unique community, but remain responsible to city voters as a whole. This city is too small to support only district elections. The growing insularity of this current narrow district voting mandate is creating overall institutional dysfunction.
At least provide an audit of city revenue generation per city district and each district's subsequent demand on city resources, to see if there are unequal fiscal issues we are inadvertently overlooking. The city is primarily a fiscal entity; not an experimental social engineering proving-ground, costs be damned.
Let's get our internal books balanced first, before we are dunned for another round of increased taxation, or intentional loss of city revenues, now used to carry out some narrowly focused social engineering scheme.
Audit of City revenue generation per City district and each district's subsequent demand on city resources to see if there are unequal fiscal issues ! Yes...
Ah yes, the wealthiest districts should enjoy the most services. That is a recipe for success if I've ever heard one.
Thanks for playing your hand, Justin. Helps put your future comments in better perspective.
Unfortunately we are two different tables. Actually I'm not at the table. I'm not playing a hand. If you feel my comments should remove me from the conversation, stay in your echo chamber. I'm trying to get out of my bubble, but nobody here has convinced me yet. Why is Mitt Romney the best you can do? Why did you throw out Liz Cheney?
Cutting waste on projects such as unused bike paths would go a long way toward restoring fiscal health.
The unused new bike path I have been observing over the past few months finally hit the news: an accident between a bike rider and auto. The only known report of actual use of this new bike path near Micheltorena and Sola Streets - the chess set segment of this biking safety program. Speedy recovery and best wishes to the injured bike rider. But what happened that ran counter to all these best laid plans?
I am 100% for 99% of the bike paths in town. That one on Sola is the 1% I have no idea at all what they were thinking.
The original plan was to wipe out all street parking along Micheltorena Street to directly connect the Westside to State Street, which is a plan that looked good only on paper. Micheltorna street provides street parking for one of the more densely populated parts of town with lots of small housing and infill units on older small lots, with very little off-street parking. This was back when Cathy Murillo was mayor.
That proposed use of Micheltorena Street did cause sufficient uproar that a compromise to use the less traveled West Sola Street as a bike way was offered instead, which required this very awkward chess piece lane connection between Micheltorena Bridge and the new Sola Street bike path connection.
Regardless, I have yet to see much use of this Westside bike connection to downtown. Maybe others have better stats than my randomly timed observations. I do like bike paths and enjoyed them when I was a cross town bike rider in the past, but agree, this one does not work. But what would in this congested part of town with narrow streets and through-town car traffic?
PS: At one time several decades ago the traffic plan was to block off both Castillo and Bath Streets to car traffic at West Mission (West Micheloterena?) Streets.
This would devote both Bath and Castillo for mainly interior residential use in this part of downtown, as well as offer safer route for the proposed bike path on these two streets. The more direct traffic going into downtown would be funneled into Chapala and DelaVina Streets instead
Both Bath and Castillo were two-way streets at that time, which were far too narrow for both street parking and two way traffic. Accidents with parked cars were routine. The City did finally change Bath and Castillo to one-way streets and did include these two bike paths to the beach, but never closed off the through traffic starting act Misson (Or Micheltorena?)
So out of this incompleted master traffic management plan, they now needed to make a connection to the Westside across the Micheltoerna Bridge and that is where we are today. A hodgepodge.
Could they still close off those two streets to direct through traffic and make a more direct connection to the existing bike paths to the Westside? And use those silly chess piece barriers in the sad little sole playground at the Westside Community Center -the only "open space" by the freeway for kids to play in this part of town?.
Thanks for the article Ms. Donovan.
I am curious about a couple of items. Having sent several FOIA requests myself, I know the way you phrase the request can make a difference. Perhaps something like, what is the total agreement between b-cycle and the city, and what has been the total revenue generated for the city. Perhaps there is not a lease agreement but some other kind of mutual benefit agreement.
Also I think the city only gets something like 3% of property tax revenue, most of it going the county. So housing being exempt from property tax is probably a very small drop in the bucket for the city.
I am for a thorough analysis of the spending. I believe there are several places the city could save millions of dollars.
Good Morning Justin.
Total, Amount, and Received, are three words in the request that should have pulled something. 3% from property tax, correct is a small amount. But isn't 1/2 a cent or 1% (as in sales tax increases)? Yet 3% on $500,000.00 is much more than 1% on $100.00.
As property owning citizens of the City you may understand how your taxes will go up due to an inexperienced City Council and a lot of new out-of-towner City officials running things.
They want to raise Sales Taxes by 1/2 cent to maintain services that are already being done. Consider voting NO on this measure in November.
think globally, ACT locally
Part Of the reason for wanting to raise sales taxes is due to decreased tax revenue. It doesn't take a genius to see at least two things that are causing decreased tax revenue.
1. Buying property tax paying properties for the Housing Authority to build low rent apartments is partly accomplished by having the Housing Authority pay no property taxes on those properties.
2. Having closed 8 blocks of State Street for 5 years has forced a lot of businesses to leave. Consequently, the City has decided to raise the parking fees at City owned parking lots. Higher parking fees will create fewer people downtown and consequently reduce sales (and taxes) in the City. In essence, the City has tried to repeal the Law of Supply and Demand.
Thank you if you have been able to read this much. Please vote locally in November
Voters also need a better understanding even if revenues had remained the same, there are numerous expense accelerators that are automatic, and already built into every new city budget creating new deficits every year even when treading water revenue wise.
Eg: step increases, and increased premiums demanded by outside third party employee benefits providers - health and pension costs as well as just the routine costs and supplies.
These automatic expense generators get paid off the top, and voters are told you will not get any more infrastructure repairs or improvements unless you agree to higher taxes. Does anyone's private industry business operate this way? Or for how long.
Should voters be asked to pay additionally for parks and potholes, when in fact city revenues have already been siphoned off up front for increased employee pension benefits? We are currently on an escalator that only goes up. We need to better understand what this means. How do we stop this automatic escalator. How do we get off this escalator? What prices are we willing to pay regardless.
(I commend much, but not all, of Josh Molina's recent Noozhawk pod cast about city staff recommendations for increased parking fees. Molina is starting to get it, but remains misguided on other requisite trendy talking points and personal recommendations. It is however a good autopsy on how our city (staff) too often makes decisions in our names. )
Great reporting.
less than 10% of the population rides bicycles at all. Far fewer ride regularly.
I think churches, synagogues and mosques ought to be taxed for their property value, and set an example of charity in action by offering up their parking lots unused for most of the week as "safe parking" for "individuals experiencing homelessness" living in cars. They can require the downtrodden attend services so they have a chance at salvation.
Salvation Army and the Rescue Mission at one time were doing an exemplary job with the relatively limited numbers of transients who came to through this town. However, a former city council, reinforced by a one-off local judicial decision allowing overnight RV use of our streets, led to the council's decision to support a secular "homeless shelter" which did not include the mandatory religious component in order to participate.
One can mark that city council decision as a turning point in the explosive growth of the no-strings attached current response to this continually growing and highly disruptive street population.
Nice to see you suggest reintroducing the spiritual aspects as a valued and necessary component when working with this issue, with its proven prior track record of both the Salvation Army and the Rescue Mission. Building on success is always a good recourse, when current policy remains an ongoing and increasingly expensive failure.
Pat, I've thought the same thing for decades.
Huh?
Bonnie, thanks for mentioning Josh Molina's post, at 9:00 I think he gives the best reasons for State street be reopened to cars.
And on the Housing Authority, I live near the corner of Rancheria and West Montecito streets, just below City College. The property on the corner has yellow development signs saying, "52 low income apartments proposed."
The notice says the ABR is meeting next Tuesday at 3pm. I really hope they are providing more than 52 off street parking spots.
BCycle is somehow related to the bike juggernaut Trek bicycles of Wisconsin. Bcycles is a non-profit but have the same address as Trek. Trek does fund a lot of new backcountry and frontcountry bike trails.
Mountain bikers terrorize the back country trails as badly as the bike gangs terrorize pedestrians on State Street. Riding bikes used to be a fun outdoor activity for young people. When did it become so angry and politicized?
We've had different experiences in the back country - where I have found most bikes have bells and are courteous to hikers and horses. Yes, there are some teens and young folks that still need to learn the etiquette ropes. And not that it would give anyone the excuse to be rude - but a majority of the biking, hiking and horse trails are maintained by what were mountain bike focused groups like SAGE trail alliance. https://sagetrail.org/ and other groups like montecito trail foundation.